


I'll put down my roots when I'm dead

by lwbones123



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Brother relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, SBI family dynamics, Villain Dream, anxious Tommyinnit, good big bro Technoblade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:33:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28167063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwbones123/pseuds/lwbones123
Summary: Based off of the interactions between Tommy and Techno during the latest stream (Tommy's stream was called "Fighting Back"). Tommy and Techno go looking for dogs, and stumble upon Tommy's old place of exile.
Relationships: TommyInnit & Technoblade
Comments: 9
Kudos: 421





	I'll put down my roots when I'm dead

**Author's Note:**

> I really liked writing this, I hope y'all enjoy reading! Family and sibling dynamics are fun lol. Comments are appreciated!  
> Follow my tumblr if you'd like: lwbones

Today it is snowing. 

Tommy presses his nose to the window, breath fogging the glass, watching the thick, lazy snowflakes pile on the blanket of white, stretched out for what seems like forever. 

It has been a while since he’s seen snow. He remembers it, the magic of waking up to a silent world. The snowball fights had been brutal, as most fights with Techno and Wil were, and they had tag teamed him, those bastards, slamming fistful after fistful of snow on his head until he’d cried to Phil who made them stop, though he was laughing too, quietly. His clothes had been soaked, his entire body frozen, but though the snow was cold the hot chocolate later, pressed together around a fire, was much warmer.

There is no hot chocolate in his hands now, and the fire in the fireplace has died down since it was lit a few hours earlier, when he and Techno had first woken up. There is something bitter about this snow, something venomous in the silence. It makes his palms itch, his stomach turn.

“Technoooooooo,” he calls out, not moving an inch, still staring out at the scene before him. “Techno!”

Sounds of shuffling, and then a grunt as his older brother’s head pokes through the hole in the floor, leading to the basement.

“What?” the older man asks, annoyance very clearly lacing his tone.

“When are we going, big man?”

“That’s what you called me up here for?” Techno huffs, knuckles turning white on the trap door. 

“Well yeah, I’ve been waiting for like an hour now,” Tommy replies.

“First of all, it’s been ten minutes, max, and second of all, I’m trying to get the supplies ready so we can go, so really all you’re doing right now is setting us back even more.”

“Technoooo,” Tommy whines. “We’re just getting some dogs, we don’t need fuckin’ netherite or anything, let’s get out of here.”

Techno huffs a breath of frustration. 

“Tommy, that is exactly the reason why I am in charge and you’re not.”

“Come on, Techno, I’ve already got like a stack of ender pearls and another stack of gapples. We’re all good.”

“You took _how_ much of _what_?” Techno asks, voice rising.

“Hey listen, man,” Tommy says nervously, backing up against the window. Even with only the top half of his body visible, an angry Techno is frightening. “You’ve got like, fifty other stacks of that stuff.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“What? I wanted them!” Tommy nearly shouts. For some reason every nerve in his body is telling him to run, to get out of the house and never stop. 

“I didn’t say you could take that!”

“Ok, ok, I’m sorry,” Tommy says, sharp fear burrowing deep in his chest. His hands shake as he drops the items on the floor, almost a reflex. “I’m sorry.” 

Techno pauses, looks at Tommy, confusion drawing his eyebrows together. Tommy stares down at the items on the floor, shame burning his cheeks red.

Techno shakes his head.

“Just take them,” he says. He nods towards the hovering ender pearls, the shining gapples. “It’s fine, just take them.”

“Really?” Tommy asks, voice apprehensive.

“Yeah, whatever. I don’t care.”

Tommy bends down, puts the items back in his inventory, stands back up, looks anywhere but Techno’s face. 

“Tommy,” Techno says, and Tommy looks up then, at his hardened, warrior of a brother’s scarred face. His expression has softened, his brown eyes full of something different than normal. 

“Don’t apologize, ok?” he mutters. “Just- you don’t gotta apologize.”

Tommy nods, clenches his fists. His throat has closed up, words drying up along with it.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes. Just wait there, alright?”

Techno disappears back down the hatch and Tommy watches, still staring at the trap door minutes after Techno has climbed down the ladder and into the basement. He still shakes, his chest constricted with a flood of emotions. Fear, confusion, anxiety, relief, pulling him in different directions. 

When Techno appears again, throwing a pile of furs ahead of him, Tommy has not moved.

“Help me,” Techno says, holding out armor for Tommy to grab. 

The younger boy takes the proffered chestplate slowly, tightly gripping the glowing netherite. 

“Put in on,” Techno says gruffly, pulling himself up through the hole. He is already wearing a fur lined cloak, armor shining underneath.

“You look like such a prick,” Tommy croaks as he straps the chestplate on. “Why does everything you wear have to be so… fuckin’...  _ that _ ,” he says, gesturing at Techno’s royal get-up. 

“There’s one for you too,” Techno says, pointing at the blue, shimmering cloak lying on the wooden floor. It looks like a dead animal, dyed blue, in Tommy’s humble opinion.

“I’m not wearing that, it looks ridiculous.”

“You’ll freeze to death if you don’t,” Techno retorts, moving to the door.

“I didn’t last time. I got all the way here and I wasn’t even wearing armor.”

“Yeah, and then you holed up below my house like a raccoon for a few days and when you finally came out you were half dead and practically convulsing you were shaking so hard.”

Tommy crosses his arms across his thin chest. 

“I’m not putting it on. It ruins my whole aesthetic.”

“You don’t have an aesthetic, now put it on.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Tommy,” Techno says, drawing out a netherite sword. “I will stab you if you don’t put that cloak on right now.”

Tommy glares at his older brother, but met with an equally hard gaze he caves, grabbing the cloak from the floor with an unnecessary amount of aggression. 

“Well when you put it like that,” he mutters, throwing the cloak around his shoulders. It is warm, he reluctantly admits to himself. He would rather die than tell Technoblade that, though. 

Techno looks Tommy up and down and snorts, opening the door, a wall of cold air hitting the both of them.

“I look stupid, don’t I?”

“You look fine,” Techno says, his back turned towards Tommy as he leaves the house first. Tommy can hear the smile in his words.

“You’re a fuckin’ liar,” he seethes, adjusting the cloak around himself as he steps out into the snow. It’s too big and practically swallows him up, but it _is_ an impenetrable defense against the frigid air and the flying snowflakes. His face, however, is immediately assaulted.

“Holy shit,” he exclaims, bringing his hands to his ears in an effort to warm them as he follows Techno through the foot-high snow. “It’s fuckin’ cold.”

“What an acute observation,” he hears Techno say, the wind loud enough to reduce his words to a rumble that Tommy can barely pick up.

“Where are we going?” Tommy asks, raising his voice above the wind.

“To a forest,” Techno responds. “It’s where the dogs spawn.”

Tommy nods, though he knows his brother can’t see him. 

He can’t help but notice how good it feels to be with someone else, even as he trudges through the thickening snow, the worsening weather, which would be miserable to anyone else. All he can think about is the fact that Techno is here, and that he’s not trying to kill him, and that for the first time in weeks, he feels… good. Like he can do something. Like not everything is hopeless.

Walking along now, behind his older brother, things are clearer. He still doesn’t like to think about his exile, about Dream, but he doesn’t have to. Not today. All he has to do today is find two dogs and make them have babies. 

There is a noticeable change in the air once they reach the edge of the forest, about an hour later. The wind has died down, which Tommy is grateful for, the fur on his cloak tickling his neck with each gust of frozen air. The forest is like a bubble, quiet and peaceful, the savage winter muffled by the closely packed evergreens.

“Ok we’re here, now what?” Tommy asks, shifting from leg to leg.

“Now we find two dogs,” Techno says, marching on into the forest.

They trample over roots and branches, hidden beneath the packed snow. Once or twice Tommy is tempted to bend down, grab a handful and shove it down Techno’s collar, payback years in the waiting, but he suppresses the instinct. He is really trying to be on Techno’s good side right now, and the logical part of his mind knows that Techno will not take kindly to the attack. 

“Hey Techno, what’s the worst word you know?” Tommy asks, stumbling over a particularly low hanging branch, his cloak catching and tearing a bit at the end.

“What?”

“I mean I could tell you mine, if you needed an example. I know quite a few actually-”

“Yeah, I don’t need you to tell me,” Techno says drily, continuing on at his relentless pace. 

“I’m just wondering, ya know. Here’s a few of my favorites: fuck, shit, pus-”

“You know I’m really starting to see why no one seems to like you, Tommy.”

Tommy pauses briefly. 

“People like me,” he says. “Plenty of people like me.”

“Hm,” Techno says, pushing aside a snow covered branch. “From what I heard you were exiled from L’Manburg because of how much of a nuisance you were being.”

“I wasn’t being a nuisance,” Tommy says, starting up again, panting to keep up with his brother. 

“Like you’re not being a nuisance now?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to engage my crazy fuckin’ brother in civil conversation. You blew up L’Manburg, remember that?”

“Oh come on Tommy, you don’t have to bring that up every-”

“You tried to kill me, bro. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that, ‘cause I haven’t you massive-”

“Shhh,” Techno interrupts, putting a gloved hand over Tommy’s chapped lips. Tommy pulls away, pushing at the hand, but remains quiet, watching how Techno tenses, every muscle in tune with their surroundings.

Techno turns to the right and Tommy mirrors him, looking over his shoulder to see what he sees. With a quick motion Techno pushes aside another branch, and lo and behold, lying in the snow, curled up against the trunk of an evergreen, is a small white dog. It looks up at them with wide, blue eyes.

“Don’t move,” Techno whispers and then he slowly moves to a crouching position in front of the dog, stretching his arm out at a snail’s pace, a bone extended towards it.

The dog gets up, sniffs at the bone curiously for a moment, its black, shiny nose prodding at the foreign object.

“Is he gonna-”

Techno shushes him again, keeping very still while doing so.

The dog steps forwards cautiously and then accepts the bone, which is much too large for its small mouth.

“Did you do it?” Tommy asks.

“Yeah, it’s ours now,” Techo says, petting the dog’s head as it lays down in the snow, its prize set between its paws.

“Well we gotta name it,” Tommy says, kneeling down next to the dog, petting its soft fur. “What about Shitass?”

“No.”

“I thought that was a good one,” Tommy says, twisting his face into an expression of fake hurt.

“I bet you did,” Techno says, petting at the dog’s sides. The man, though still decked out in armor and weapons, looks a lot less intimidating right now, patting the dog in front of them.

“You name it then, if you’re so good.”

“Ok, its name is Craig,” Techno says with zero hesitation. 

“Craig?” Tommy sputters, laughing in his brash way, spittle flying. “That’s the dumbest fuckin’ name I’ve ever heard, bro.”

“Well, that’s its name. Come on, Craig,” Techno says, standing up. “Let’s go find you a friend.”

Tommy shakes his head, standing up slowly, knees popping loudly. 

“Oh, I’m getting old Technoblade,” he says as they continue through the snow, Craig following along at an enthusiastic pace. “You might have to carry me. My bones, they’re so weak.”

“You sound like Wilbur,” Techno says, the shared memory of Wilbur’s crackling joints flashing through both their minds. It was a running joke amongst the three of them. Old man Wilbur and his creaking knees.

Tommy doesn’t like to think about Wilbur. There’s lots of emotions tied up in those memories, memories of before. That’s how he’s begun to see it. Things that happened before, before Wilbur went batshit, and after. 

The memories of before hurt more than the ones that came after.

They both go silent, the only sounds in the blanketed forest their crunching footsteps. Once in a while a bird will fly from a branch, feathers flapping loudly in the quiet air, but that is it. 

Tommy’s fingers find their way into Craig’s fur, twisting gently in the long strands as the dog walks alongside him. He appreciates the dog’s presence, appreciates something that isn’t tainted like the rest of them. 

They search the same forest for an hour longer, to no avail. Craig seems to be the only dog alive for miles. 

“Well now what?” Tommy asks, leaning against a tree as they approach the edges of the forest, snowy hills stretching out in front of them. 

“We find another forest.”

“Another forest? We’ve been out here all day, man.”

“Yeah, and we haven’t found two dogs.”

Tommy sniffles, rubbing at his frozen nose. 

“I’m fuckin’ cold.”

Techno ignores him, looking out at the hills, consulting a map he has pulled from his inventory. 

Tommy rolls his eyes, bored out of his mind. Walking around all day in the cold is not his idea of a fun time. 

Suddenly, he remembers the ender pearls in his inventory. He pulls one out, rolls it in his hand.

“Hey Techno, watch this,” he says, throwing the glowing green sphere forwards, into the hills. 

Before he can hear Techno’s response, an invisible string pulls at his navel, and he collapses into the snow, about a mile away. He can see Techno’s small form, can almost feel the annoyance rolling off of him in waves.

Tommy laughs, pulling another pearl from his inventory, tossing it forward, landing at the bottom of a hill, snow soaking his cloak. 

He throws it once again and lands beyond the snowy hills in a field of grass. Standing up, he looks around, and feels familiar, sickening dread crawl up his throat. 

Stretching in front of him are green plains, flat and seemingly never ending. He knows they end, though, because he knows, just a few miles from here, there’s a beach, with craters where a cabin used to be, where a tent used to be.

“Shit,” he whispers, his heart racing impossibly fast.

He doesn’t want to be here. 

Techno appears behind him, a stack of ender pearls in his hands, and he looks like he’s going to say something biting until he sees what Tommy sees.

“I don’t like the plains biome, Technoblade,” Tommy rasps. "I really don't like it."

"Let's go, Tommy," Techno says.

Tommy almost agrees with him, almost turns around. Something glues him to the spot, pushes words from his mouth.

“I know where another forest is,” he blurts out.

Techno frowns, remains silent.

“It’s just over there,” Tommy says, pointing at a spot beyond the fields of grass. 

“We don’t need to go to that forest.”

“It’s close though,” Tommy whispers. “I didn’t see any other forests close by.”

“Tommy,” Techno says hesitantly, so different from his normally brusque nature. “That’s around where you were exiled.”

Tommy’s stomach drops at the word. He swallows.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” he says. “You need a forest, right?”

Techno nods. “Sure, I need a forest.”

“Well there’s a forest over there.”

Techno sighs, watching Tommy closely. 

“Fine,” he says slowly. “We’ll go over there.” 

Tommy nods. Every part of him screams to turn around. 

He squares his shoulders, filled with a morbid sort of fascination. He has to see it. He has to face it.

“Just- just stay near me, okay?” Tommy asks, tone pleading, a concession of the terror he feels.

Techno nods, face grim.

They march on, across the grass, the temperature rising gradually to the point where by the time they are approaching the old campsite, both of them have removed the cloaks and placed them in their inventories.

Logstedshire is the same as he left it, holes decorating the ground, torches lighting up the slowly darkening evening. 

Except it’s different, he thinks. The dread is the same, the panic is the same, but there is something different about being back after being gone. It could be freedom, the feeling of liberation. It could be something else. Desperation. 

He knows that if anyone ever tried to drag him back here, he would make sure he was dead before they got the chance.

“We’re going to the forest,” Techno says, steering him away from the crater where his tent once was. “Nowhere else.”

Tommy nods, lost for words, overwhelmed by the flood of memories, of horrible feelings. It is hard to believe that it has been two weeks since he had escaped. His dreams make him feel like it was just yesterday.

They enter the forest, Craig going ahead of them, chasing after a fluttering chicken. 

“Stay close,” Techno says, grabbing his arm. 

Tommy follows along like a small child, grateful to not have to think, for a moment, about what his body is doing. 

Techno becomes immersed in looking for another dog, his arm slipping from Tommy’s after a few minutes, and Tommy finds himself looking at the trees, at the familiar bends in their branches, the familiar knots in their trunks. 

This was the tree he cried under, that one time, he remembers, approaching a particularly hunched oak. And this one, the birch white one amidst the brown oak, was the one he’d climbed in and promptly fallen off of, too weak to hold himself up. 

He wanders through the trees and remembers everything.

He remembers throwing up under one, he remembers hugging another, just to feel like he was touching another person. He remembers singing to another, one night when he wasn’t feeling all that coherent, he remembers beating one with a stick, when Dream had come and taken all his weapons the first time.

Dream. He remembers Dream. Always with a smile, because he was his friend.

No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t his friend.

Was he?

Tommy stumbles out of the forest, his feet taking him, their own memories leading him down the path, towards the walls with the faces of his friends, towards the Christmas tree. 

He wants to stop. He wants to lie down. He can’t.

He feels sick. He feels like there is something under his skin, clawing to get out. He feels like he can’t breathe.

He collapses on the path, vomiting up everything he has eaten in the last few hours, bile burning his throat, saliva sticking to his chin.

He wants to throw up everything inside his head, every echoing memory. He wants it gone, he wants it all gone.

“Techno!” he screams, because Techno wasn’t supposed to leave him, he was supposed to stay right next to him, he told him to stay near him. “Techno!”

He screams himself hoarse, shivers running down his spine at the thought of being alone. He doesn’t want to be alone. He doesn’t want to be alone. 

He is alone.

He’s alone and no one is going to come for him, they’ve all forgotten about him, or worse, they just don’t care, and he’s going to rot on this island alone, with only Dream for company, Dream who is his friend but he’s not his friend he’s not and he hates Dream and he hates everyone else and he just wants to die because it would be easier than continuing on like this-

Suddenly, he is swept up into stronger arms, held tight to his brother’s chest.

“You left me, you left me,” he babbles, voice muffled, cheeks wet. “You left me.”

“I didn’t leave you, you wandered off, Tommy,” Techno says gently, his voice rumbling in his chest. “It’s alright, I’m here, I didn’t leave you.”

Techno rubs his back, rocks him back and forth as he sobs, fists clenched in the satin white shirt. Tommy has never been more grateful for another person’s presence, has never clung to anyone like he does Techno in the fading light, knelt in the dirt of a horrible, horrible place.

“You’re going to be okay,” Techno says over and over, as he lifts Tommy up and leads him to the portal, as they go through the forbidden Nether, as they go back home, the second dog long forgotten. 

He doesn't know why he trusts Techno when he says those words, over and over. He shouldn't. He should never trust Techno again. 

But he does. He remembers snowball fights and hot chocolate and a fire and laughing and happy voices and warmth. It is a warmth he misses, so he trusts the boy from those memories.

"You're going to be okay," that boy says, and maybe, maybe, he will. 


End file.
